NOW that we’ve started the year with a round of conflict and chaos that promises to escalate, soothsayers — some call them economists — are spinning out grimmer predictions.

This got me thinking about the many doomsday predictions that have been made over the years. It seems like every decade or so, someone throws up a new date to herald the end of the world.

Back in the early 1980s, the Nostradamus prophesies were the vogue in Singapore and Johor Baru. An Australian documentary called Prophecies of Nostradamuswas making the rounds on pirated video tape. For a 12-year-old, it provided a scary outlook for the future:

Nostradamus, the documentary explained, had apparently predicted the rise of the third anti-Christ (the first two were Napoleon and Hitler). This new one would spring up in the late 80s from the Middle East and wage a 27-year war that would bring earth face-to-face with its own destruction.

So, I, like many of my friends, was left wondering, why bother studying when everything is going to pot anyway?

Of course, later on I learnt that many of Nostradamus’s predictions were written in so vague a manner that they were rendered useless.

Date with destiny

But that never stopped new Armageddon dates from popping up with increasing regularity. In fact, there are several websites, such as Armageddon Online, that keep watch over potential trouble that could spell the end for some, or all, of us soon.

There’s even a poll on the website that asks readers to vote for the next mega disaster. So far, the favourite poll pick is the Yellowstone eruption which also featured in the Mega Disasters series on The History Channel:

It seems not a year goes by that some person or other predicts the end of the world, basing their beliefs on various sources. There are religious texts such as the Book of Revelation; then there is numerology, drug-induced visions, and selective reading of climate and planetary movements.

The end-is-nigh brigade reached fever-pitch during the turn of the millennium. The Y2K bug drove fears in the finance industry and threatened all the major industries including utilities, banking, manufacturing, telecom, and airline.

The latest date to be bandied about in cyberspace is 21 Dec 2012, known as Galactic Day, when a long predicted celestial cycle comes to pass. To those in the know, this date marks the end of the Mayan long calendar, which started on 13 Aug 3114 BCE.

The 2012 prediction was first forecast by José Argüelles, whose calculations have been disputed by Mayan scholars.

Apparently, during the winter solstice in 2012, changes in the Sun’s magnetic field will have grave repercussions for us here on Earth.

The Mayans had a very precise understanding of our solar system’s cycles and believed that these cycles coincided with our spiritual and collective consciousness.

So, it’s our collective consciousness that will decide our fate. We are within the 13-year window period to bring about change, a period known as Time of No Time, which began in 1999. During this time, we, as individuals, will have to make decisions that will affect us all. According to the 2012 Warning, “if we continue on this negative path of hate, an eye for an eye, destruction of nature, of fear and egoism, we will enter straight into the time of destruction and chaos, and we will disappear as the dominant race of this planet.”

Wow. That’s quite a responsibility.

Save our souls

With only three years left on the clock to avert what may be impending doom, perhaps it is time to re-examine spiritual matters with a little more urgency.

In looking for answers, I recently met up with spiritual healer and author Anne Jones. Jones, who regularly travels the world, delivering lecturers and healing wounded souls, recently published her latest work, The Soul Connection (published by Piatkus).

Anne Jones For Jones, the soul is a part of your spiritual aspect that travels down to earth and is incarnated in physical form. The purpose of the soul “is to experience the trials and tribulations of a life on Earth … Although your soul is spiritual energy created of love, it can be wounded and damaged by the experiences of earthly life. For example, betrayal, great grief or guilt are all experiences that can damage your soul.”

“A wounded soul will block your ability to live your life to the fullest. But before you can move forward, you need to decide that you want to heal. The intention to heal hurts is the most important thing,” Jones tells The Nut Graph.

Apparently, now is the best time to heal. The soft-spoken Jones, who is coming to KL for a series of seminars (check her website for details), said the energy coming through at present is very positive.

“The world is in a healing situation. There’s a greater mass consciousness moving towards finding a peaceful resolution,” she says, alluding to the growing anti-war movement in Europe and America.

Tick, tick… boom!

What about the Mayan calendar? Jones also believes that we are standing on the cusp of great change. It is not quite the end of the world, she says, but a chance for humanity to change their collective consciousness and together enter a golden age of peace.

“The energy levels are rising. And the pendulum could swing either way. If enough people want peace, it is possible to bring it about,” she explains.

But to do this, “we need to step away from judgment; we must stop judging ourselves,” she says.

Healers like Jones are part of a growing movement of New Age spiritualists. Others include Louise Hay, Neale Donald Walsch, and Eckhart Tolle, seeking the Universal Truth and the attainment of the highest human potential.

“People want to connect directly themselves without the apparatus of a guided path,” explains the England-based Jones, when asked about the popularity of the movement.

And though people fear change, it is a very necessary part of our growth as spiritual beings.

“Any healing process is painful, but we are moving ourselves closer to our higher-force energy.

“It can start with one individual, but it can go on to affect the mass, and vice versa,” says Jones, the founder of Ripple UK Ltd and Hearts and Hands, an international healing organisation.

So, you might decide to flock to churches, mosques, temples and monasteries. Or you might prefer a spiritual retreat to the Himalayas, the Andes, or a cosy conference room in KL. Just remember, the clock is ticking.

And if 2012 goes past without the Earth going up in flames, just look out for the next doomsday prediction on the horizon.

Note: Anne Jones will be giving a series of talks at these venues:

24 Feb 2009 – Times The Bookshop @ Pavilion, KL (7.00pm – 8.00pm)

25 Feb 2009 – MPH, Mid Valley (6.00pm – 7.00pm)

26 Feb 2009 – Borders, The Curve (7.00pm – 8.00pm)

N Shashi Kala is tired of all the false prophecies. Could someone just get it right?